Making a custom 3" receiver for the LMTV M1078

[Lil Foot]

I like the design & I wish I had your welding skills! Nice beads!

 

[mcmxi]

I like the design & I wish I had your welding skills! Nice beads!

Thanks! It's turning out better than I expected. I get tunnel vision sometimes and had the truck out in the driveway thinking that it wouldn't fit in the garage. The rain has got steadily worse throughout the day I was about to quit since welding in the rain sucks! Then I remembered that I can fold the side panels down and remove the corner posts which are held in place with one bolt. DUH!!

I cut off the awful looking rings that hung beneath the receiver and got the D-rings and plates tacked in place. The plates extend up to where the 4"x3"x1/4" cross member is welded to the frame. Now to the finish welding. The next and final update will be once everything's welded and painted.

 

[bird dogger]

Now that's lookin' mighty sharp!!

 

[mcmxi]

One more update before it's painted. I got back to welding around 1pm this afternoon. It's slow going and it's been years since I worked as a welder, so many of the things that became second nature have long since gone. For example, looking at a joint to be welded and intuitively knowing how many passes it'll take.

For anyone that has done field welding you'll know that it's often uncomfortable, awkward work. You can't position the part at a height that's comfortable, things are in the way, vision is often obstructed and getting burned comes with the territory.

That said, I'm very pleased with how this is turning out. I was planning on grinding down the two vertical welds where the receiver plate butts up to the angled plates, but it came out nice enough to leave the welds showing. I decided to burn off the two bolt/nuts that secure the 4"x3"x1/4" cross member to the big plate that the Pintle hitch is mounted to. I wanted to get a good weld where the vertical and horizontal plates meet, and the bolts/nuts were in the way. I'm going to get some new bolts and change the orientation by grinding the heads to fit and then welding the head of the bolt to the underside of the plate followed by nuts and washers from above.

@Runs With Scissors mentioned the challenge of overhead welding but it's fairly easy to be honest. Vertical up with 7018 not so much. I'm using 6011 on the first passes to burn out paint, oil, rust or any other contaminants and following up with 7018. A few more days of this and I'll almost be back to how I used to weld when I was getting paid to do it.

 

[Runs With Scissors]

Looks Great man!